Cold Feet
by goodbye2pisces
Summary: Every bride gets cold feet on her wedding day.


She has it on good authority that the dress is completely different this time around. So is the veil, her glowing ginger hair swept elegantly away from her face and up into the little tiara perched at the top of her head. Her makeup just so; it's the kind you spray on, like racing stripes on a car. An assembly line bride straight out of _Vogue_ this time around, as opposed to the last time. Last time she ran. The runaway bride, just like in the Julia Roberts film, only there was no Richard Gere waiting for _her_ in the end.

She dreams she's running sometimes. There's always someone with her. She can feel his long fingers curled around hers, reassuring and familiar. Together they run, laughing, exhilarated, the wind whipping through their hair. Sometimes they're terrified, frantically running for their lives. She finds she doesn't mind as long as they're together. Then she wakes and finds Shaun laying beside her in bed. She takes his hand in hers and is disappointed that it isn't the one that reaches out for her in her dreams.

She blinks, realising that she's been staring unseeing into the floor length mirror inside the bridal suite for the last five minutes. Her eyes stray towards Nerys her Maid-Of-Honour, an awkward vision in hideous peach chiffon.

_No bridal party should outshine the bride on her wedding day_ she'd said when they'd complained about the dresses at the first fitting, though the _real_ reason she isn't inclined to accommodate them is because she just doesn't like them very much. They're her oldest friends and she doesn't really like any of them at all; a fact she's only just beginning to realise now.

"Did you ever have a dream Nerys," she asks, eyeing the sharp eyed blonde as she liberally applies makeup to her face from a slim compact, "something you've wished for ever since you were a little girl?"

"Of course," Nerys says, dabbing her chin with powdery beige coverup, "same as yours; to marry rich."

Donna frowns slightly at that. Actually, when she'd been very young, it had been to marry Harrison Ford. "Is that all?" she asks.

Nerys shrugs, snapping the compact closed with a decisive pop. "What else is there?" She grins somewhat maliciously. "Oh I see," she says, "having second thoughts now that it's clear Shaun will never be the next Bill Gates?

"Of course not," Donna snaps, her nose wrinkling in distaste, "just how shallow do you think I am?"

"At least as shallow as me," Nerys says, shrugging noncommittally.

"_No_ one's as shallow as _you_ Nerys," Donna says, rolling her eyes, "and anyway, that's not what I meant. Something just for yourself. Something you've always wanted to do."

"Like what?" Nerys asks doubtfully, as if the idea never even once occurred to her.

"I dunno," Donna says, "like…" _run_ she thinks; _as far and as fast as you can, run until the ground beneath your feet is brand new and there are mysteries to be solved around every corner and the right hand is waiting to slip into yours at the end_, "escape," she murmurs, her throat suddenly dry.

"What?"

"What?" she echoes, blinking in confusion. "No... travel, I meant, somewhere you've never been before, somewhere exotic where you can get to know the people; learn how they live."

"I expect people are pretty much the same no matter where you go," Nerys tells her, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

Donna frowns slightly at the vague feeling of deja vu the words conjure in her. "Aren't you ever afraid Nerys," she asks, "that you'll wake up twenty years from now and realise you've never done anything with your life except age twenty years?"

"That's why I plan to marry a plastic surgeon," Nerys says snidely.

Donna sighs. "Look who I'm talking to," she says sarcastically, "the only thing you've ever been curious about in your life is what's on sale at _M&amp;S_."

Nerys just shrugs and applies another layer of lipstick.

"Things happen though, don't they," Donna murmurs, "whether we're paying attention to them or not. Like the planets in the sky last year. I mean an entire sky full of planets and I somehow miss it. I always seem to miss everything."

"I already told you, the _Mail_ said that was just a hoax," Nerys says, her eyes rolling in annoyance, "a Hollywood publicity stunt for some movie they were filming in Cardiff."

"Yeah, but what if it wasn't though," Donna says. "What if all the stuff we take for granted about how the world works isn't necessarily true? What if it's _so_ much more brilliant than we think it is? What if anything is possible, like the planets moving about in space?"

"So what?" Nerys says, pulling a face, "you're planning on temping for the Space Agency now, or following your granddad up the hill every night to stare at the stars through that telescope of his?"

"Don't you ever get tired of making that face Nerys," Donna says flatly.

Nerys' eyes narrow slightly. "You should have married the doctor," she says.

"What?" Donna asks suddenly breathless, her cheeks flushing red with heat.

"That bloke, you know, Edmund Collins," Nerys says, completely oblivious to Donna's reaction, "the one you were seeing before taking up with tall thick and handsome out there."

Donna scowls. "Like you're one to talk," she says flatly, "the last bloke you dated stole all your clothes."

So what if Shaun wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box. He had a good heart. He'd be good to Donna; a good father to her children.

"Whatever," Nerys sneers, "but you can bet his next girlfriend won't be so quick to give up the six-figure income."

"I didn't love Edmund Collins, Nerys," Donna says, pulling a face. Actually she couldn't stand him. "All he ever talked about was his car."

"Right," Nerys smirks, "because you're _so_ in love with Shaun."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Donna demands.

"Oh now, don't get excited," Nerys soothes, "you've got the right idea really. It's always best when they love you more. Much easier to keep them in line that way."

"You're…" Donna murmurs, her mouth falling open in utter bewilderment. "Honestly, could you _be_ anymore cynical?"

Shaun doesn't exactly make her see fireworks it's true, but she _does_ care for him, even if he _is_ a bit passive. Arguing with him isn't fun the way it ought to be, the way it… used to be. Donna frowns slightly at the thought, not exactly sure where it's come from.

"Look it's all well and good talking about dreams and that," Nerys says with a shrug, "but _I_ live in the real world, and so do you." She stands. "It's normal for the bride to have doubts on her wedding day," she says absently smoothing the chiffon pleats of her dress, "but don't go trying to turn this into some sort of fairytale. You're not getting any younger you know. It isn't as if some handsome stranger is going to arrive at the last possible second to sweep you off your feet. You're just a temp from Chiswick. There's nothing brilliant, or magical about your life."

"So it's just grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house and have a kid and that's it?" Donna says numbly. "That's all there is?"

"What else were you expecting?" Nerys asks.

There's a soft knock at the door and Wilf pokes his snowy head into the room. "It's about that time Sweetheart," he says. "Are you ready?"

Ready to make do with a less than extraordinary life. Donna swallows, her eyes straying to Nerys' face. "Yeah Gramps," she says softly, "I suppose I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

~END~


End file.
